I had collected some aquatic plant samples from a kayaking survey the day before, and they needed some careful inspection, since the distinguishing characteristics aren't yet very obvious this early in the season. The samples were floating in a tray of water, waiting for investigation on a rainy day - how convenient! To me, this intense scrutiny with non-laboratory tools was preferable to vacuuming and cleaning whilst trapped indoors. So I set about pulling leaves off their stems with a scalpel, tweezers and a needle - I needed to view the leaf bases of the two different samples under magnification. Dale took this picture while I was busy - when one of my mentors saw my results, she described the sample as looking 'mangled' though the magnification was adequate!
One of the small leaf samples is visible on the pink plastic grid to my left, so you can appreciate how small a fragment I'm looking at. I must say though, that my 'results' didn't help me in the slightest!
I had fun anyway - it was challenging fun. But, sadly this activity didn't last all day, so I ended up cleaning the house after all. But we also opened a bottle of red wine to accompany the beef and roasted potatoes I made for dinner, so not a bad day at all. (I also thawed a blueberry streusel cake that made for a great dessert when accompanied by ice cream). Life is GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!
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